I was in the 7th standard in the Indian School in Salalah, Oman when the teacher first introduced debating in our class.... it was so new.... and little did I know that I would ultimately choose a career that would be entirely based on debates......

anyways the topic of debat was 'man v. woman'.... i have no recollection of who or why this topic was chosen... suffice to say that the entire class was divided and two speakers were allotted... both of them girls! no, I was not chosen - guess I was not as argumentative at that time.....

as the debate progressed, the girl who was arguing about men being better than women, had a fantastic line of arguments.... her arguments included that men are the bread winners, they are strong, they perform so well everywhere etc... the girl who was arguing for women came up and put on a spirted argument saying that women are mothers and that who can compete with that? Can you put a prize on the work done by the mother? and now this is the point I remember the most - the girl arguing for the men got up and asked 'if women are so good, then why is it that men are the bottle washers in all the places and they control the work place'....

at that tender age I doubt whether any of us knew the answer to that question.... so the debate fizzled out with a triumphant victory for the men! All of them did a monkey dance as well.....

ofcourse needless to say, if that argument is put forth to me today, I would have a thing or two to say now....but I guess nobody debates such stupid things anymore - its established that women are wayyyyyyy better than men....